Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (True Stories) (36 page)
Read Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (True Stories) Online
Authors: Unknown
Jess Rothenberg
grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, graduated from Vassar College, and spent most of her twenties editing books for teens and middle-grade readers (like
New York Times
best-sellers
Vampire Academy
,
Strange Angels
, and
I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil & I Want to Be Your Class President
, to name a few). She lives in Brooklyn, where she writes full-time, dances interpretively, and dreams of one day owning a sheepdog named Leo.
The Catastrophic History of You and Me
(2012) is her first novel. Visit
JessRothenberg.com
.
Q and A:
WHERE WAS YOUR FIRST KISS?
“Summer camp, after a bonfire.”
Elizabeth Miles
“In a plastic ‘cozy cottage’ from Toys ‘R’ Us in my backyard. (I closed the plastic windows!)”
Jessica Burkhart
“Basement. Spin the Bottle. Kim H.”
Geoff Herbach
“My first kiss was when I was 15 and at a roller rink. It was cheesy and amazing…I was majorly crushing on the guy. The kiss didn’t happen on the rink though—he was playing a video game and I just walked up and did it. I know how to make the magic happen, people.”
Rhonda Stapleton
“Stuffed between smelly overcoats in a closet at a party.”
Sean Beaudoin
“Church camp!”
Sarah Ockler
“In my bedroom while watching wrestling on TV. My brother kept interrupting because he wanted to watch wrestling with the guy I had over. But I wanted to kiss!”
Miranda Kenneally
“In the front seat of a pick-up truck—being careful of the stick shift. No pun intended.”
Bethany Hegedus
“Behind my cabin at sleep-away camp—where my entire bunk watched (and cheered) through the whole humiliating thing, 1994”
Jess Rothenberg
“Backstage. I was wearing makeup to make me look like an old woman.”
Hannah Moskowitz
“In a closet.”
Marke Bieschke
“My first real kiss—a kiss with a girl I both cared about and was attracted to—didn’t take place until my freshman year in college. It was in the front seat of my ‘59 Plymouth just before I said goodnight after a date at the movies. And, no, I am not going to tell you her name.”
Joseph Bruchac